Worth reading to see how far we’ve come - if only there was some sort of Moore’s law for sexism in the industry

Perhaps if you want people to comment as freely as they speak, the comment board has to be as impermanent as a conversation. Perhaps you could set your messages to delete after a certain amount of time, or auto-configure a disclaimer / acknowledgement for comments that no longer feel like you, or the ability to comment privately (to your online Readup journal, or just a few friends), or switch a comment from public to private when you feel like it, and back again.

I think the other challenge is that the desire to read is like an immediate need to consume new information, but commenting involves digesting what you read - which can take time and reflection - and then returning to the place where you read the article to actually type up your thoughts.

Finally, I feel like lurkers is a bad word to describe someone who reads and enjoys Readup, but finds themselves “listening more than they speak”. Making a new word for those members of your community could help remove some sort of creepy stigma attached to that totally normal behavior. If someone comments on an article I read, perhaps I could get a notification, which might encourage me to join the conversation.